adidas crossflex

The aggressive design of the adidas Crossflex spikeless golf shoe, with its thick midsole and mesh upper, brings to mind traditional running shoes, and it lives up to the comparison. The Crossflex is lightweight, breathable, and phenomenally comfortable. The shoes are grippy on the course, and have the added benefit of being waterproof (but see our caveat in “Construction and Durability” below). Of course a running shoe provides stylistic trade-offs, so these won’t look quite so nice paired with your blue blazer and khakis in the country club dining room.

DESIGN
The bold posture of the adidas Crossflex is a departure from the happy-go-lucky look of the first generation of spikeless golf shoes. The Crossflex looks like a running shoe, which shouldn’t be surprising, since it is built on a running shoe last (a “last” is a model of a foot used as part of the shoe manufacturing process, with different lasts used depending on the type of footwear being made).

The Crossflex is offered in eight different color combinations, most of which are a bit outspoken. For example, there’s black/black/slime (a bright neon yellow/green), or chrome/vivid yellow/running white, and vivid red/running white. There are also a couple of combinations with white as the base color, but note that this is an extremely bright white.

Like most running shoes, we found that the shoes paired up best with shorts rather than khakis or other long pants, so you may want something else for your inaugural round at Augusta or Cypress Point.

86 / B

CONSTRUCTION AND DURABILITY

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The uppers of the Crossflex are made of a synthetic mesh, featuring adidas’ Climacool fabric. This helps keep the shoe lightweight and cool. The Crossflex is also guaranteed to be waterproof for two years, which turned out to be important. Our first test pair sloshed through puddles and soggy morning rounds for two months without a hitch, before suddenly deciding to liberally admit water. We took the shoes back to the local retailer, who replaced them without a question. The second pair is now going on a month without issues – we’ll update you if we encounter additional problems.

The other issue we experienced with the Crossflex was in trying to keep it clean. Our first pair was black, so dirt was difficult to notice, but the second pair was white with black and red trim. After tromping through some poorly drained areas, we learned that the white mesh portion of the shoes has an unfortunate tendency to hold mud and dirt stains. We were able to restore the shoes to acceptability using a foaming shoe cleaner, but they no longer have their original sparkling white sheen.

Note that the Crossflex runs on the small side, and adidas recommends ordering up a half size.

95 / A

COMFORT AND ON-COURSE USE
These are absolutely the most comfortable golf shoes we’ve ever worn. They are extremely lightweight (weighing in at 1.4 lbs. as a pair, making them the second lightest pair we tested – Editor’s Note: our review of the FJ SuperLites CT has now pushed the Crossflex down to the third lightest pair in our tests), flexible and nimble, with ample cushioning. On hot days the Crossflex breathes well, and we never felt like our feet were on fire.

adidas claims to use “strategically placed pods and zonal traction elements” to enhance stability. The pods have ridges that provide some grip on the turf, and we have yet to experience any slippage on a swing. Keep in mind that we have yet to use the shoes during actual rain, but we have played many early morning rounds after courses have been soaked by sprinklers.

On one golf trip, we forgot to bring running shoes for the resort gym, and went ahead and used the Crossflex to hit the treadmill for an hour. Try doing that with a pair of metal spiked shoes!

92 / A-

VALUE
The adidas Crossflex have an MSRP of $100, which is a darn good value in our book. The caveats are the aforementioned issues with waterproofing with the first pair and the challenge in keeping the white pair respectably clean. But these shoes are so darn comfortable that we’re able to overlook its faults.